Digital Commons Network^™

Selected Musical Works From 2013 - 2016, Christian M. Newman

Music ETDs

This manuscript is a collection of musical compositions written by Christian Newman while a graduate student at the University of New Mexico. Each musical work fulfills at least one composition portfolio requirement as stated in the 2012 – 2013 Music Theory/Composition Student Handbook: the basic requirements include a piece with large orchestration, a piece featuring the voice, a piece featuring electronics, and a collaborativepiece. Newman’s composition portfolio includes numerous works in addition to the requirements that illustrate the depth and consistency of his progress as a composer while a student in the program.

The pieces included in this collection are …

Indigiana, Elizabeth A. Knox

Graduate Thesis Collection

Indigiana, for orchestra and audio soundscape, is dedicated to the 2016 bicentennial celebration of the State of Indiana. The title is derived from the words, ‘Indiana,’ ‘Digital,’ and ‘Indigenous.’ Its programmatic style is based on the natural landscape and my reflections on four Indiana state parks. In addition to the state's bicentennial honor, Indiana celebrated its 100^th anniversary of the purchase of its first two recreational facilities, McCormick's Creek and Turkey Run State Park.² To honor the state and my family’s longstanding heritage as Hoosiers, I used the natural landscape and environmental sounds of four Indiana state parks …

The Power Fantastic: How Genre Expectations Mediate Authority, Angela Rose Cox

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reconciles academic and popular uses of the term genre, concluding that genre is a transmedial, mutable, associative, recognized system regulated through tacit understandings of prestige and power in a given Social space. The study employs a digital humanities method (dependent on digitally facilitated data analysis), conducting descriptive discourse analysis on collected online discussions from fan spaces concerning the fantasy genre and matters related to fantasy. In this way, I construct an image of the fantasy genre, and genre in general, as a multimodal space in which material freely passes between traditional and new media and participants actively negotiate …

"If This Stuff Matters, Why Isn't It Being Shared?" : Citations, Hyperlinks, And Potential Public Futures Of Online Writing In Rhetoric And Composition., Elizabeth Frances Bergeron Chamberlain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses two deceptively discrete questions: (1) how academics might reach wider public audiences, and (2) how and why people cite the way they do. It takes citation practices as a telling though often tacit practice, one through which it is possible trace the contours of a larger story about how writing is changing as it moves online. That story: Writers increasingly reflect goals of provocation, of attracting a wider and potentially global audience, of spreading a message rapidly and virally, of responding to recent events and conversations, of sharing sources and resources. To explore these questions, this dissertation …

Sustainable Public Intellectualism: The Rhetorics Of Student Scientist-Activists, Jesse Priest

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a qualitative study of the experience of undergraduate students learning how to teach issues of sustainability to their campus communities through an innovative outreach program at a large northeastern research university. While most previous work on science writing and rhetoric focuses on disciplinary, publishing, or genre practices, I examine the holistic student experience by placing outreach, writing, and the classroom in conversation with each other, illuminating how discourses can cross institutional and contextual borders. Furthermore, while most previous work involving student engagement has focused on the positive and rewarding aspects of engagement, I examine how tension and …

Requiem, Wendell Glick

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Requiem is a five-movement work for SATB chorus and chamber orchestra and is approximately 28 minutes in duration. The text is a compilation of traditional and adapted excerpts from the Roman Missal, combined with poetry by Tamar Zehr and Psalm 67 from the King James Version of the Bible. In this work, contemporary texts are intertwined with traditional ones to explore textual and musical narratives of doubt and faith, loss and gain, death and rebirth. This document contains the full score of the work, followed by three discussion chapters. The first chapter offers a glimpse into the background of the …

Namazu, Sean Kim

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Namazu, for Orchestra is a three-movement composition for orchestra and women’s chorus inspired by various mythological accounts for the cause of earthquakes. The dissertation consists of two parts: the composition in full score and an analysis of the composition. The first movement is based on the Japanese myth and namesake for this piece, Namazu. The second and third movements refer to Greek and Norse myths, respectively. The discussion document introduces the synopses of these three myths. Additionally, the document not only outlines pre-compositional processes, including the development of a systematic approach to modifying modes and constructing harmonies, but also examines …

Revision And Re-Writing As Adaptation: Using Adaptation Theory To Encourage Student Recognition Of Rhetorical Situations, Alicia Claire Troby

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many students don’t want to revise their writing, or do so in small, surface-level ways. This has been an issue many composition instructors have faced over the years, and there is a large body of scholarship about revision and the writing process by many in writing studies. From Nancy Sommers, Janet Emig, Donald Murray, and others, to more recent publications “post-process,” composition instructors and writing studies scholars are concerned about revision and the role it plays in students’ learning to write. As a strategy for teaching bigger-level revision, I implemented the use of adaptation theory (reading/watching and doing adaptation) as …

Amused Teachers And Public Readers : Empathy And Derision In "Student Blooper" Collections., Jessica Winck

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the long-standing tradition in education of sharing and publishing students’ unintentionally amusing mistakes. Often called “bloopers,” “boners,” and “howlers,” students’ writing mistakes have been published in print since at least the early 20^th century and more recently online. Using theories of reading student writing, academic discourse, ethics, and humor, this project analyzes the misconceptions that teachers and public audiences have of students, re-reads student writing for its potential, and explores the ethical implications of sharing student work with public audiences. The first two chapters ground the reader in the historical, social, and cultural contexts in which …

Enculturation Pedagogy, Robert Lane Rockett

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

As instructors, it is very clear to us that our students all come from different backgrounds, different places, and different social environments. Some students are returning to college as they change vocations, while others are entering a brand new environment quite different from those they may have encountered in previous scholastic endeavors, whether they come from another country or even a somewhat different part of the United States. Students, like travelers to foreign lands and cultures, enter the university facing new expectations and ideas for which many frequently find themselves ill-prepared. They might struggle as they learn to speak and …

Ethos, William T. Nicolaou

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Ethos – meaning the characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations – is a piece that explores Greek music from the 3^rd Millennium B.C.E. to the folk tunes and dances of the 16^th century C.E. Ethos incorporates multiphonics, quarter tones, ancient tonal systems and folk scales to show the differences and similarities between ancient and folk styles. The piece also features the traditional Greek drum ‘Daouli’ and mimics ancient instruments with those in a traditional orchestra. As the piece develops, ancient musical fragments can be heard thought the orchestra, chiefly …

Excavating Eportfolios: What Student-Driven Data Reveals About Multimodal Composition And Instruction, Amanda M. Licastro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The pedagogical practice of asking students to compose in open, online spaces has grown rapidly in recent years along with an increase in institutional and financial support. In fact, in July 2013, the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) announced the “coming of age” of ePortfolios as the percentage of higher education students using ePortfolios rose above the 50% mark in the U.S. (“About”). There are a host of constituent assertions that support the use of open online writing platforms in college-level courses. These claims include that writing publically cultivates digital literacy through broader audience awareness, facilitates interactivity …

Embodied Narratives In Video Games: The Stories We Write As We Play, Patrick John Harrington Sichter

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This article explores the nature of narrative in video games, and how it can be applied to the contemporary classroom to help teach literature and composition. Specifically, it is concerned with the idea of embodiment in video games. First proposed by theorist James Gee, embodiment is a word describing the phenomenon wherein a player inhabits the character that s/he plays. This article takes the idea of embodiment a step further, by introducing the idea of the embodied narrative, the idea that players do not only embody their characters, but those characters’ stories as well, and are composing unique, personal …

A Comparative History And The Importance Of Chamber Music, Aaron M. Sacks

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This capstone presentation focuses on the role of chamber music in both social and academic contexts. Using examples from the past five centuries and including local examples, parallels and divergences are drawn to points of most import. The spotlight is upon three areas: a) what the role of chamber music was in the past, compared to today; b) why it is an important genre, to both musicians, as well as non-musicians, and c) in what ways more exposure to the form can be built. Much of the focus is on composers and their influence, but the impact of and upon …

The Long-Playing Ellington: Analyzing Composition And Collaboration In The Duke Ellington Orchestra, Darren Lacour

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines four albums released by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra in the LP era, highlighting the intertwined roles composition and collaboration play in the realization of the sonic products. The first chapter analyzes 1951s Masterpieces by Ellington, the bands first 12-inch LP and one of the first jazz albums to explore the possibilities of the long-playing record as a medium. I balance discussion of Ellingtons compositional techniques in The Tattooed Bride, an eleven-minute concert work, with an examination of interaction as it occurs on the extended arrangements of three standards that constitute the albums remaining tracks. Chapter 2 …

Whose Honey, Whose Hive?: Genre And Rhetorical Agency In The U.S. Colony Collapse Disorder, W. Kurt Stavenhagen

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation analyzes the rhetoric surrounding the environmental crisis of the honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder, commonly known as CCD. Since 2007, the United States has lost on average a third of its honey bee colonies each year to CCD. The crisis has potentially serious environmental consequences. Without honey bee pollination services, over $14 billion worth of crops in the United States alone are in jeopardy. Drawing on environmental rhetoric, genre theory, and agricultural rhetorics, I offer a rhetorical analysis and genre analysis of the narratives surrounding CCD from select popular press newspaper articles, documentaries, nonfiction works, and personal interviews …

Journey, Darren Alan Rainey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Journey is not about a particular journey, it is more about images or moments from within a journey. The interpretation for what this means is left up to the performers and listeners; however, I view this as one person not particularly achieving what they set out to achieve. It all began with a rough start, moments of happiness, playfulness, contempt and contemplation, but in the end it wasn't the expected outcome of the journey. The work plays between moments of vigor, aggitation, playfulness, light-heartedness, comfort and relaxation. Expression markings are described above each area of the work. These descriptions help …

Graphic Design And The Cinema: An Application Of Graphic Design To The Art Of Filmmaking, Kacey B. Holifield

Honors Theses

When the public considers different art forms such as painting, drawing and sculpture, it is easy to understand the common elements that unite them. Each is a non-moving art form that begins at the drawing board. Using line, color and shape to evoke a particular response from audiences is what ties these fine arts together. Graphic design, however, tends to separate itself from the fine arts. Because of its later development in the art world, as well as, its operation within modern technological developments, graphic design is driven by the idea of communicating to large audiences. In this way, although …

The Epistemologies They Carry: An Investigation Of Feminist Writing Assignments, Kathryn Elizabeth Navickas

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines feminist writing assignments as one pedagogical site that influences students’ engagement and thinking. Drawing on rhetorical genre studies, feminist pedagogy, and composition scholarship on writing assignments, I argue that because writing assignments are genres that position students in particular subjectivities and carry implicit arguments and values, they are texts that should be revised for their theoretical and pedagogical features. The dissertation examines feminist writing assignments in the history of feminist composition scholarship, in a collection of 73 feminist-oriented writing assignments contributed by teachers who self-identified as enacting or being influenced by feminist pedagogy, and in one of …

Collaborative Writing For Commercial Musical Theatre, Alexandra Grill-Childers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Collaborative writing has produced some of the world’s most important work for the stage, especially in the field of multidisciplinary theatre, which includes musical theatre, operetta, spectacle theatre, circus, ballet, and any other form of theatre employing multiple modes of performance (i.e. music, dance, acting, mime, etc.). Without collaborative writing teams, we would retain little of the multidisciplinary theatrical repertoire that has been produced in the past 120 years.

I argue that although the solo creative genius holds a position of great esteem in Western culture, creative collaboration has long been a more reliable, if less romantic, approach to the …

Symphony No. 1, Robert Alden Clark

Masters Theses

Symphony No. 1 is a three-movement composition for full orchestra. This piece is composed in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree Master of Music with a concentration in Composition from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The symphony was composed during the 2015-2016 academic year and is roughly twenty-two minutes in length. The first movement is written in sonata form with prefacing material that encapsulates the essence of an Adagio as well. The second movement is a lighthearted scherzo and trio with elements of sonata form. The final movement is an Allegro in modified rondo form that recapitulates previous …

The Wishing Well: A Children's Ballet (A Composer's Perspective), Lydia Dempsey

Honors Projects

As a composer, I am passionate about introducing audiences to contemporary classical music. I chose to compose a twenty-five-minute children's ballet titled The Wishing Well based on the fairytale Diamonds and Toads. It premiered on April 2, 2016 at the Bowling Green Performing Arts Center in collaboration with choreographer Sophia Schmitz and conductor Robert Ragoonanan. Other elements of the project included set design, costuming, lighting, audio and video recording, and marketing. The mission was to provide the local community with a free arts event, introduce young audiences to music and ballet, enrich people’s lives through music and dance, provide …

Crucial Community: Attention Deficit Disorder In The College Writing Classroom, Lauren Tullio

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Digital Communities Of Practice: How Asynchronous Digital Collaboration Afforded A Complex Reading/Writing Dialogue For Secondary School Students, Susanne Lee Nobles

English Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines a case study of a research unit taught to secondary school students with the inclusion of an asynchronous digital collaboration with college students. Over consecutive school years, two classes of high school seniors and two classes of college students, despite being geographically separated by more than 90 miles, worked together in multiple reading and writing exchanges within an online community as they read a primary text and as the secondary school students wrote research papers. This study seeks to understand the effects of this unit on the secondary school students’ thinking, reading, and writing skills, focusing specifically …

Shifting Dreams: Intersections Of The Rhetorical Imagination Of U.S. Immigration Policy And The Writing Practices Of Dreamers, Genevieve Garcia De Mueller

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation examines the intersections between the rhetoric of the DREAM Act and the discourse of the migrant activists, specifically DREAMers, affected by the Acts language. Through a hermeneutic approach combining a rhetorical, genre, and critical discourse analysis, I examine how the DREAMers respond to marginalizing textual features of the Act. DREAMers appropriate genres and rhetorical moves of the dominant discourse to combat four problem features of the DREAM Act, namely the criminalizing nature, the erasure of the affected subjects (migrants), the taking away of agency from the affected subjects (migrants), and the propagation of xenophobic racism. Often fraught with …

Memes, Args And Viral Videos: Spreadable Media, Participatory Culture, And Composition Pedagogy, Mary Karcher

Wayne State University Dissertations

This project argues that spreadable media texts motivate people to engage in compositional activities advocated in First Year Composition (FYC). Drawing on Henry Jenkins’ assertion that participatory culture offers potential for learning, I use his list of eleven participatory culture skills that he believed necessary for all students. After showing how well the Participatory Culture Abilities (PCAs) align with the WPA Outcomes Statement (WPA OS), I put forth the WPA OS and the PCAs combined as a lens through which to view three spreadable media case studies: Spreadable Media Events, Fan Labor, and Alternate Reality Games. Based on my findings, …

One Thousand North, Amber Beams

Graduate Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Theseus And The Minotaur, Ben Lutterbach

Graduate Thesis Collection

Theseus and the Minotaur is a four movement, through-composed chamber work for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. The work explores elements of fear, chaos, love, and aggression.

Politics And Pedagogy: Recuperating Rhetoric And Composition's Native Ethical Tradition, Derek Risse

Wayne State University Dissertations

Over the past decade, scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have shown renewed interest in the topic of ethics, prompting what some have described as an ethical turn in the discipline. Spurred by a deep-seated concern for the legacies of humanism, scholars have turned increasingly to extra-disciplinary referents in continental philosophy. This dissertation works to recuperate the discipline’s native ethical tradition via a critical rereading of the often-implicit treatment of ethics in Composition scholarship of the 1980s and 1990s. Returning to this “critical” moment and emphasizing the rich thinking around the question of ethics provides fuller and more disciplinary-specific resources for …

Six Stories, James Silver

ETD Archive

The six stories contained in this thesis were created during my graduate studies at Cleveland State University. All six stories resulted from different class writing prompts, and each exercise encouraged a new idea that was then work shopped and revised. Still, there is a common thread running through these stories: the writer. My interest in communicating and entertaining has always been present and well nurtured. I have had the good fortune to be in constant contact with that inner voice, both professionally and personally. These six stories represent a brief hesitation in sixty years of accumulated feelings, insights and beliefs. …